The Harbor Master eBook

Black Dennis Nolan brooded all day by the stove with
his big hands clasped idly between his knees.
The grandmother sat near him, in a tattered armchair,
smoking her pipe and mumbling wise saws and broken
stories of the past.

“I bes a storm-child,” she mumbled.
“Aye, sure, wasn’t I born a night in winter
wid jist sich a flurry as this one howlin’ over
Chance Along—­aye, an’ wid a caul
over me face. So I has the power o’ seein’
the fairies.” And then, “me man were
bigger nor ye, Denny. Skipper Tim, he were.
Built the first fore-an’-after on this coast,
he did.” And later—­“There
bain’t no luck in diamonds. The divil bes
in ’em.”

Young Cormick sat on the other side of the stove,
busily carving a block of wood with a clasp-knife.

CHAPTER V

FATHER MCQUEEN VISITS HIS FLOCK

After the storm from the northwest had blown itself
out, a spell of soft weather set in along the coast.
East and southeast winds brought fog and mild rains,
the ice rotted along the land-wash and the snow dwindled
from the barrens and left dripping hummocks and patches
of black bog exposed. The wreck in Nolan’s
Cove had gone to pieces during the blizzard, sunk
its cargo of pianos, manufactured cotton and hardware
in six fathoms of water and flung a liberal proportion
of its spars and timbers ashore.

Black Dennis Nolan felt as sure that Jack Quinn had
perished in the storm as if he had seen him prone
and stiff under the drifting snow. The fool had
left the harbor that night, sometime before the onslaught
of the blizzard, but after midnight to a certainty.
He had gone out—­and he had not returned!
There could be no doubt about his miserable fate.
The skipper pictured him in his clear mind as lying
somewhere out on the barrens with the red-bound casket
clutched in a frozen hand. So the skipper devoted
a day to searching for him over the thawing, sodden
wilderness behind the harbor. He took Bill Brennen
and Nick Leary with him. The other men did not
grumble at being left behind, perhaps because they
were learning the unwisdom of grumbling against the
skipper’s orders, more likely because they did
not care a dang if Foxey Jack Quinn was ever found
or not, dead or alive. Quinn had not been popular.
The skipper informed his two companions that the missing
man had broken into his house and robbed him of an
article of great value.

“We bes sure to find him somewheres handy,”
said Bill Brennen. “Foxey Jack was always
a fool about the weather—­didn’t know
east from west when the wind blowed. What was
it he robbed from ye, skipper?”

“Whatever it was, ye’ll both git yer share
if we finds it,” replied the skipper. “More
nor that I bain’t willin’ to say.”